Lawsuit against engagement ring-keeping fiancée dismissed

Exes settle lawsuit over engagement ring spat

A Seattle man has settled with his former fiancée after suing her in hopes of forcing the jilted woman to return a $19,000 engagement ring.

In a lawsuit filed in May, the man claimed his ex had refused to return the 2-carat diamond ring after he broke off their engagement in April.

The man admitted he gave the Carnation woman the ring but contended he did so under the condition they would wed. The woman described the ring as a gift, given before her fiancé broke up with her via text message.

The odd state of the law on the issue meant the man would have to show his fiancée was responsible for the break-up. Case law on the issue dates to a time when a previously engaged woman whose fiancé left her would see her prospects for marriage – and with them a comfortable life – greatly harmed.

The King County couple never ended up airing all that dirty laundry, though. The case was dismissed earlier this week following an out-of-court settlement, the circumstances of which were not disclosed.

While some states allow fiancées to keep engagement rings under all circumstances, Washington law on the issue is mixed.

The state Appeals Court ruled in 1990 that an engagement ring-giver should get it back if the recipient breaks off their engagement. But the ring recipient – the fiancée, traditionally – gets to keep the ring if the engagement is unjustifiably broken by the giver.

The Washington Appeals Court decision broadly draws its legal logic from a 1948 decision out of New Jersey. In that case, the New Jersey court found that an engagement ring is a symbol of an agreement to marry.

“As such (a) pledge or gift, the condition is implied that if both parties abandon the projected marriage, the sole cause of the gift, it should be returned,” the New Jersey court ruled. “Similarly, if the woman, who has received the ring in token of her promise, unjustifiably breaks her promise, it should be returned.

“When … the giver of the ring, betokening his promise, violates his word, it would seem that a similar result should follow,” the court continued. “He should lose, not gain, rights to the ring. … How, on principle, can the courts aid him, under such circumstances, to regain a ring which he could not regain, had he kept his promise?”